As the Internet is increasingly being utilized to facilitate inter-personal relationships, Internet services are available that allow individuals to create their own personal web sites or space. This personal web space is typically employed to publicly display an individuals “preferences” which can include such subjects as their relationship objectives, their likes and dislikes with respect to a wide variety of subjects and their interests to name only a few areas. The current model for interacting with such a personal web space is for one individual to access another individual's personal web space to initiate a dialog with another individual about whom the site relates and possibly become a “friend”. Once a “friendly” relationship is established between two individuals, it is possible for these “friends” to give each other permission to access information stored in a “private preferences” portion of their personal Internet space. Such “private preference” information can include multimedia content, private feelings, wishes or hopes or other information that the individuals do not wish to be made public. This private preference information can be easily passed around over the Internet among “friends” so that these “friends” can experience in real time each others public and private preference information and then possibly reacting to this information by communicating in some manner with the “friend”. This reactive communication can include an expression of sentiment towards a “friend” which can be among other things happiness or sadness, agreement or disagreement, appreciation, anger or joy. Typically, “friends” employ either computers or portable communication devices as the vehicle over which to enable this reactive communication.
In an effort to improve the quality, the ease and the enjoyment with which individuals conduct inter-personal relationships over a communications network; robotic devices are designed with the capability to support a communication session between at least two individuals. These robotic devices may be equipped with audio and video input and playback functionality that permits individuals who are both local and remote to the robotic device to be seen and heard by each other through the robot. A robotic device may also be equipped with environmental sensing capabilities that permit it to sense the presence of an individual proximate to it and the distance of the individual from the robotic device, for instance. One such robotic communications device is sold by the iRobot Corporation under the trade name of “ConnectR”. This robotic communications device includes a duplex voice communication capability, a video camera for capturing images of the individual using the robotic device, local and remote control of the robotic devices movement and wireless communications technology for transmitting and receiving audio and video information over a communications network. Although the “ConnectR” robotic device does facilitate a communication session between individuals and does, under either local or remote control, move around its environment, this device is not able to gather and store any remote information, available on the network over which it communicates, to which it can react in a visible manner to an individual using the device.
Another robotic device suitable for facilitating interpersonal relationships is disclosed in US 2007/0199108 A1 entitled “Companion Robot for Personal Interaction”. This application describes a robotic device with the capability to navigate from room to room in a house and to monitor the activity of and interact with individual residents in the house. Further, this application discloses a robotic device with the capability to connect to a communications network for the purpose of sending information it collects as the result of the monitoring activity in its local environment to a remote location. Conversely, a caregiver at the remote location is able to connect to the robotic device over the communications network for the purpose of monitoring the activity of a resident or for the purpose of sending specific questions concerning the welfare of a the resident over the connection to the robotic device that a resident can react to. The robotic device is also capable of receiving from the resident a response to questions that it can send over the communications network to the remote caregiver that is indicative of the welfare or condition of the resident. Although US publication no. 2007/0199108 does improve the quality of personal interaction between a remote caregiver and an individual that the caregiver is monitoring, the robotic device that is employed as a communication interface between the caregiver and the remotely monitored individual is only capable of reacting to information it gathers or senses from its local environment, such as the presence of the monitored individual. Although the robotic device can be remotely controlled to perform certain activities, the robotic device does is not able to “interpret” the instructions sent by the remote caregiver to generate a “reaction”.
Numerous robotic devices exist that are able to gather information from their local environment and react to the information gathered in a particular manner. For instance, PCT publication WO 02/073947 A3 entitled “Robot for Remote Supervision and Remote Manipulation Via the Internet” discloses a robotic device that is able to detect the presence of an intruder in a residence and then react to this information by sending a message over the Internet to the owner of the residence that informs the owner of the intrusion into their home. US publication no. 2007/0150099 A1 entitled “Robot for Generating Multiple Emotions and Method of Generating Multiple Emotions in Robot” discloses a robotic device that is able to gather and store information from its local environment and then depending upon the type of information gathered from its external environment, is able to respond by generating one of a number of pre-programmed emotional behaviors. U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,840 entitled “User-Machine Interface System for Enhanced Interactions” discloses a robotic device that can detect and recognize an individual in its environment and generate an artificial feeling based on the individual it recognizes. US publication no. 2006/0293787 A1 entitled “Communication Robot Control System” discloses a robotic device with the ability to react to a person proximate to the robotic device by generating reactive motions and emotional interactive actions. Although the patents and applications described above disclose robotic devices that are capable of reacting to environmental stimulus, none of these robotic devices are able to gather information outside of their local environment and so have only limited utility for the development of inter-personal relationships.
US publication no. 2006/0161301 A1 entitled “Processing Method for Playing Multimedia Content Including Motion Control Information in Network-Based Robot System” discloses a robotic device capable of downloading multimedia content from a remote server over a communications network. The multimedia content may include information that the robotic device can use to generate certain motions based on the nature of the media content. Although the robotic device can “react” to the media content, it is merely reacting to motion instructions included in the downloaded multimedia file and in no way interpreting the content and then reacting by generating an appropriate motion.
None of the prior art robotic devices described previously are capable of facilitating a relationship between two or more individuals by allowing access to or the sharing of information stored at a personal web site associated with a communications network. Further, none of the prior art robotic devices are able to react in a human perceivable manner to information of any type gathered by the robotic device from a remote site over a communications network.